Soldier
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: There are degrees by which she feels for people, and though it wasn't love, she certainly felt something for Dean Porter.


inspiration for this fic brought to you by:

_and so it goes this soldier knows  
the battle with the heart isn't easily won  
(but it can be won)_  
-'soldier', ingrid michaelson

---

Heartbreak feels like a void, she's decided. There's a complex tumbling inside of her, as though the blood is trying to rush out all at once, leaving the cockles abandoned, empty, desolate with yearning. Olivia has felt this particular way before, but only scant few times. Only a scant few people have managed to weave their way through the complexities of her being in order to reside in her heart.

Her mother was one of them; after she'd taken that tumble down her steps, Olivia had felt as though she'd had the breath stolen from her body, wished that *this*, this would be the last time she would ever have to feel this way.

There are degrees by which she feels for people, and though it wasn't love, she certainly felt something for Dean Porter. A lingering sort of cloying attraction, lust with the potential for oh so much more. Even as he had spoken the words insinuating that he had feelings for her, he stole all of those feelings right back.

The job; it always comes down to the job.

That heart now feels slightly empty, like it wants for something. This isn't surprising, because she has felt this distinct hollow so many times previous. Her tongue swipes at her lips just as her chest constricts and she wonders why there are tears pressing at her eyes when the last things she wants to be doing is crying. A steadying, deep breath steadies her and as a matter of connecting back in the moment, she glances around the interrogation room; she listens to the quiet and decides that heartbreak is that too: quiet.

There is only her erratic breath and the wind slapping the sides of the building; distantly there is the bleating of phones and muffled conversation of people who haven't the faintest idea of what she's managed to lose, once again. She wouldn't want any of them to begin to question what had just transpired, but it's also striking how offended she is by the people living their lives, doing their job a few yards away.

Her reflection in the pewter one-way looks far too tired to be her. The weariness that has crept in around her eyes is too familiar though, and Olivia knows that she'll be carrying this moment with her for quite awhile. It's become too easy to pretend as though instances like these can be shrugged off; everything leaves a trace, some things more than others and there's a gnawing in her mind that this bagged will be carried for quite some time.

Her eyes take one last pass over her appearance in the mirror before she closes her lids for a moment and sighs. Even as she'd gazed him on her couch knowing that he the kind of man who willing chose to hide too much, the hope inside of her that he would become something else for her had been overwhelming. For so long, she had been willing to allow the true want of him to occasionally occupy her mind. To have that want extinguished so entirely in the blink of an eye... the shock to her system still lingers.

Olivia knows that there was something in his gaze, something real, something she would have allowed herself to expound on had her partner been in the next room.

Her mind lingers on Elliot, how filled with fear his eyes had been when he'd plucked her from the ground. Around her, his arms had felt entirely too secure, so comforting and yet, so foreign; there had been no trace of hesitation or apprehension in his embrace. How natural it had felt was perhaps the most strange of all, her willingness to allow her body to fall completely into his so total that if there hadn't been law enforcement personnel swarming in on them, she would have done exactly that.

It's something that's too painful to think about now, like salt on a fresh wound and so she manages to clear it from her mind for the time being. Roughly pulling her hands over the sides of her jeans, Olivia swallows and takes a step into the hallway, leaving the interrogation room behind.

She is brisk as she passes through the antechamber, walks away and never realizes that Elliot is standing in the shadows behind the glass, clutching the case file in his hands all too tightly.

---

Nothingness can't begin to describe what she feels as she enters her apartment. A desolation that she's never felt before between these four walls presses itself at the base of her spine and winds its way until it is choking her throat. And it's hard to breathe, then, thinking that there is no one here but her. No one to come home to.

Only on a few occasions has she felt this way this acutely before; it's entirely too palpable this evening and so when she closes the door, she sets to erasing all vestiges of her previous "guests" from her home. Dean's wine glass is the first to be plucked from the table and she rinses it briefly before shoving it into the dishwasher. Her own glass is set down on the counter and filled nearly to the brim with pinot noir.

Olivia sips as she goes, straightening her sofa up, tossing the roses into the garbage. Her bedroom carries almost no trace that anyone but herself has been in it. She realizes that Morales must have been the one to straighten up, Elliot was never this tidy.

And Porter certainly hadn't thought about neatness when he'd been in her bedroom last; as she recalls, his slacks had ended up tossed across her bureau, his shoes kicked in to different corners of the room. He had been everywhere around her after they'd tumbled into bed. It had taken long minutes for him to collect himself from her room and even longer for her to right everything that he'd managed to disturb. How deeply he'd touched her and how much she wished to contain those feelings and dispose of him after he'd had to leave.

Dean Porter was not the sort of man to follow an evening such as they'd had up with a phone call; too messy. They went their separate ways and his scent remained on her sheets for a good week. At the time, she hadn't been able to get him out of her thoughts.

There has to be something to replace him now if not in her heart, in her mind. She sits on the edge of her bed, hands on her knees and notices the angle that a framed photograph on her bedside table is skewed. It's only by twenty degrees or so, but it has been moved; the disturbed dust proves that. It's a terrible photograph of the two of them, but it's a photograph of the two of them.

In the squad, the green walls in the background making her skin look pallid and paper-thin; she's smiling, but it's only for the humor of the photographer. He's wearing a goofy grin, and looking just to the right of the camera and behind the both of them, Fin is shooting a look of faux-hurt at John-who is holding the camera-for not including him in the snapshot. She recalls the day when it was taken, how Munch had snagged an evidence tech's camera at the end of a thirty-hour shift and snapped the picture.

They had all hated him for it, and yet each of the three of them had asked for a print.

And now it sits on her bedside table, a place where photos of family or lovers are usually prone to decide. But a framed moment captured in time of she and her partner is what she's chosen to wake up to in the morning and Olivia knows then that Elliot has taken notice of this; she wonders how he had felt, picking it up, noting it's proximity to the place that she sleeps. Righting the photo in the position she'd had it previously, Olivia allows her gaze to trace the line of his jaw as she reaches for her glass, almost misses.

And it comes full force then, the thought of just how untidy he might be if she was ever to host him in her apartment again. How untidy might he be if he ever again saw her bedroom? The glass in her hand is grasped too tightly and she is handling the crystal too roughly, doesn't trust herself with the glass much longer. The wine disappear down her throat as she quickly finishes it off, shuffling back to the kitchen to add her glass alongside Dean's. It's with a little too much force that she shuts the door on the dishwasher and flicks it on, not caring enough to add soap. Elliot would not be idle if she were to allow him in again;he's a tornado, something unhinged and she knows that if he ever brought it, she would accept his chaos.- Yes.

Olivia will not sit on her couch and she will not sit on her bed and so she decides that the bathroom is the safest place at the present. She steels herself away, closed the door tightly, locks it although no one will be joining her and she starts the shower even before she is undressed. None of this will wash away with the bathwater, but she can attempt to work out some of the tension that's gripping her shoulders like a vice. The combination of the hot water and the wine causes her head to spin in a delightful sort of way. Soapy fingers trail down her arms as she comes to the sad conclusion that this is certainly the equivalent of licking her wounds; it's no matter, this too will fade with time, she will just have to try extra hard to erase it. Thus she pressed the soap to her skin and scrubs had, the force smarting with pain but she allows a few more swipes before she pulls away and stands under the spray.

Olivia wonders if the water running over her face is tears or just the shower or both.

Over thinking this won't do her any good; this is something that she has learned time and time again, after many sleepless nights with far too much on her mind. Thus, wrapped in her old-but comfortable robe, she lays herself out on her bed lengthwise and just exists for a few moments. It's a wonder, how she manages not to think, but as she listens to the wind rushing against the windows and her pipes settling for the evening, Olivia ponders simplicity and how to best integrate that into her life.

It's as she spreads her arms out over the thick comforter that the knock comes-a knock she knows-and she kneads her fingers into the down, attempting to transfer a modicum of the sudden anxiety from her body. Why she feels such anxiety she doesn't know, it's just Elliot. She knows Elliot, knows what to expects. Perhaps it's that she's fairly certain, in this instance, he has no idea what to expect from her. She's... a mess; there's no time to pick up the pieces and so she picks up herself and moves to the front door.

Of course he hears her, maybe feels her as she places her hand against the door and breathes. There's easy, soft humor in his voice and she surprises herself with how incredibly glad she is for it. "Open up, I brought sustenance."

Predictably, as though a pawn in an uninspired sitcom, her stomach rumbles around and Olivia opens the door with an air of gratefulness that she hopes is palpable. "If that's Thai, I'll..." he passes by her and the aroma carries. "I don't know what I'll do, but it'll be something good."

"It is Thai, so come up with something really creative." Elliot paces around her kitchen as she plays catch up; he snatches plates and forks and glasses and sets them up for an impromptu two a.m. dinner. It means something that he does things like this for her, but she chooses not to harp on that, instead thinking about the pineapple fried rice that is sure to be nestled in one of the cardboard boxes.

They sit on her couch and his eyes are too dark for this time of night, a fact she chooses to ignore and he looks over at her too much but she ignores that too. They eat, they breathe, their knees bump and stay and neither one of them acknowledges this with anything more than an increased heartbeat.

Around a mouthful of Pad Thai he mumbles, "I'm sorry about... about all that shit with Porter."

They chew in silence and it's only after another bite and a swallow of water that she claims, "No, you're not."

For some reason, Olivia thinks that her retort should startle him into some sort of diatribe to the contrary but it doesn't; maybe they've grown past that or maybe it's too late or maybe it's just that they're both okay with the truth. "I'm not but," Elliot thinks. She can tell he's mulling over his next words as the creases set into his forehead and he places his plate of food on the coffee table. "I mean, I'm sorry for what it put you through."

That alone is enough to alleviate some of whatever-the-hell-this-feeling-she's-feeling and yet he continues, his throat thick and his words rough and low, "What he put you through and what I put you through and all of that."

Her natural defenses return, glib deference of emotion, "Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?"

"I didn't mean to be Liv but, after... I heard what you said to-" Elliot scrubs his hands over his face and leans to his left, settling against the arm of the couch. "Trust is tough; finding out you've lost trust, even tougher." He was really trying and for some reason, the sensation of just talking with him felt so foreign and so reminiscent at the same time. Though odd, her ears crave his voice.

"El," something she calls him every day sounds incredibly intimate and it takes them both by surprise. Olivia forgets what she was going to say because he's looking at her like he's a little lost, as though something monumental has happened and he doesn't quite know how to handle it. To make things worse, the singular thing she wants to do at this point is to cross the small distance between them and press her lips to his just to try and feel what he feels. Because she's wanted to forever, because even now when she can think of everything and nothing, all she wants is to press herself into him as far as she'll go.

Because he's there and he's always been there and she can't honestly fathom a time when he won't be there. Her heart breaks then too and she welcomes the void as she processes the fact that there's more than a decent chance that she'll never be able to keep him. The emptiness of it swallows her; Olivia knows that she's bound to feel this way forever, this lost, this without because there's no rationale behind the way she feels for him or the way he feels for her and so they're each powerful to stop it.

This night too will leave a trace, but it won't be bitter; she won't want to forget it.

It is Elliot's hand on her knee as he once more reaches for his plate that sends another fissure running through her heart and she falters in her resolve. It is quiet and so she sits and eats and lets him hear her falling gently apart and he moves his thumb against her sweat-clad knee and it's fine.

"Thanks," Olivia mentions belatedly and they both smile, but just a little.

Inside, she crumbles a bit and thinks of Dean, thinks of Elliot, thinks of everything but finally settles on thinking about the now, how good his hand feels against her and how she feels the slightest bit less empty.

Everything feels inadequate but the sheer presence of him.

She'll take it and she'll soldier on.


End file.
